An audacious new book about a “precocious” country

Jan 22nd 2026|5 min read

When he was the Indian government’s chief economist from 2014 to 2018, Arvind Subramanian made a surprising discovery. He drew an unexpectedly large audience for his annual “Economic Survey”, written on the eve of each year’s budget. As well as dry updates on tax revenues, inflation and grain production, his surveys included striking charts, provocative arguments and rhetorical flourishes. In 2016 he published a chart, bold in its simplicity, showing that democracy and development tended to go hand in hand. The big exceptions were China (too rich, given its lack of democracy) and India (not rich enough, given its “vibrant political institutions”). The chart indicated two ways in which India might converge to the global mean: fast growth or institutional decline.